Black and Blonde
by Tie-dyed Trickster
Summary: An introspection on motherhood and strength by Lunch - both of her! A shot two-shot for mother's day, posted a little early.
1. Blonde

**Blonde**

The main things I remember about my mother are her hands. They were covered with small scars, and always had a bandage or two on them.

My mother was like me, she changed when she sneezed. Sometimes her hair was pink, sometimes it was yellow, like mine. The hair change was obvious. The other change that went with it, less so. When her hair was pink, she was very lucky, and everyone around her was unlucky. When it was yellow, she was accident prone. And, unlike me, she wasn't split in two – no gaps in her memory from when she was being someone else for awhile. And she spent most of her time blonde.

I hated that I shared a hair colour with her.

Because it wasn't by accident, she did it on purpose. She always had pepper or something tickly in her pocket so she could make herself sneeze if she needed to. Because 'she didn't want to be lucky if it meant hurting other people.' She was such a martyr, it disgusted me, even as a kid. And it showed me that if you have to choose between yourself and others people, you should choose yourself, because choosing others just gets you hurt; look out for yourself first. My mother was the weakest person I ever knew, and she taught me to be selfish.

Which is why I guess I was able to have Surpa. I didn't care that the kid could end up ike my mom, or me, or worse, and I didn't tell Tien the risk of that happening. I wanted a kid and I was gonna have one! Blackie was with me on this, the having a kid thing. And yeah, we do communicate. A pad of paper and a pen or a tape recorder, a pot of pepper, and, boom, conversation. It's not something I talk about to other people, it's none of their business. But I bet they'd be surprised on how much the two of us agree on. They shouldn't be – I mean, we're friends with the same people, wear the same clothes, like the same foods, we even fell in love with the same man. It's mostly just stuff like how quickly you should resort to violence and fiddly details about ownership we disagree on. Mostly though, when we talk, we get along.

She surprises me sometimes, though. I didn't expect to come to aching but buzzed, like when they give you the really _good_ painkillers and they're still kicking in, with this little red-pink bundle of person in my arms, its squishy little face topped with a tuft of dark purple hair. Tien was sitting on the bed next to me.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Shinhan, it's a girl."

Tien's got a dumb sense of humour sometimes (when he's not being all stoic and stuff). Could be worse, though – he could have a dumb sense of humour all the time. I probably should have punched him or something, but I had a baby in my arms, one I'd put a _lot_ of effort into getting ready for in the past nine months. Like hell I was gonna risk _dropping_ her. Plus, those were some _good_ pain killers. Still don't know how Blackie did it – we both admit I'm the braver of the two of us.

We did a good job on the kid, though. She was all splotchy and stupid-looking, with the faint bulge and line on her forehead that indicated she'd inherited Tien's eyes, all three of 'em. Absolutely perfect. Probably a good thing Tien was there to ward off the nurse, because she would have been so kidney-punched id she's tried to take my little girl away. It was definitely the drugs talking, but at that moment I was seriously considering carrying the little twerp around until we both died, and to hell with the fact that yesterday I couldn't wait to pop the thing out and be done with it. …well, maybe Tien could hold her sometimes, she was part his after all. And maybe Chaotzu if he was being good, 'cause he helped me land Tien in his own extremely special snowflake way. But I had done most of the work, so I got to hold her the most.

That decided I leaned on Tien and he put an arm around me. "She's got your thing," I said, gesturing to the third eye our daughter sported, "Does she have my thing?"

"She asked you to check," Tien said quietly, all three eyes focussed on our daughter.

I'm always impressed when Blackie pulls shit like this on me – makes me proud to be the same person as her. So I brushed the ends of some of my hair under that tiny, squished-up nose, tickling, and, after a moment, my little girl frowned, then sneezed.

Nothing happened. Nothing I could see, anyway – even her hair stayed the same. I was still deciding whether I was happy or annoyed at this when Tien reached over to gently take her from me, frowning. "Her ki changed," he said when I gave him a Look that he knows by now means he'd better damn well explain himself, "It's subtle, but something happened. It's almost like-" brows knitting, he unwrapped our baby and we both stared.

"I thought you said we had a girl."

"We _did_ have a girl."

"You obviously need to get your eyes checked, because that's a boy. Still perfect, but very much not a girl."

"I know, I can- look, make him sneeze again."

The pain meds made me magnanimous, so I tickled our little boy's nose until he sneezed, at which point she opened all three eyes to give me that look newborns give because they can't control their faces yet and damn if it didn't get me right in the maternal instincts, which was actually a bit of a relief, because I honestly hadn't been sure I had any. It was good to know I wouldn't have to leave all the parenting to Tien, Blackie, and the midget after all.

I didn't admire my mother, but she taught me to be selfish, and that got me Surpa, who is the best thing I ever got that I didn't steal (the best thing I ever stole was Tien's heart, and I'm still never gonna give it back), so I guess I'm grateful to her.


	2. Black

**Black**

The main thing I remember about my mother is her patience. It can't have been easy, raising a child like me, who wasn't even always the same person from one minute to the next. But she was always there for me, even when I had a handful of money and didn't know where I got it from.

She was the strongest person I knew. She could have had an easier life if she'd just kept to her pink self, but she didn't like hurting people, so she stayed blonde. And she taught me how to cook and sew, even though she always ended up hurting herself in the process.

"When my hair is yellow, I get hurt, but they're small hurts," she told me once, showing me the scars on her hands and arms from numerous past injuries, "When my hair is pink, my luck is good, but people around me get hurt – much worse than this. Much, much worse. So I can handle a little pain."

My mother was the strongest person I knew, and she showed me how to be strong, which is why I was able to have Surpa. I knew my child could end up like me, or my mother, or worse, and I told Tien the risk of that happening. He pointed out that our baby could also end up having three eyes, and suggested maybe the sneezing thing could be related to that. He also said that I seem to handle myself well enough – both of me – and that, together, all of us would be sure to teach our child to handle themselves, too.

And he was right. People sometimes ask me if it's weird or scary to be two people in one like I am, but honestly it doesn't bother me at all; I've always been like this, so, for me, it's normal. To be truthful, sometimes I wonder how other people manage to get by _without_ having another self they can fall back on if they get too scared, someone to talk to who's always available as long as you have paper, pencil, and pepper. Other Me can be very naughty, but she takes care of us, and she found us Tien when he vanished off to train with Chaotzu and didn't tell anyone where he'd gone. And I think I'd be lonely if she wasn't there anymore, or even if we were two separate people.

So when the contractions started, I promised myself I wouldn't sneeze the entire time. Because even though Other Me is braver, I handle pain a bit better than she does. And… people tell me that I'm the nice one of the two of us, but I'm not perfect. I can hate and get angry, just like other me can love and feel joy. We're the same person, it's just easier for me to laugh and easier for her to rage.

But we each have our limits, and mine was holding my newborn baby girl – all wrinkled and splotchy and perfect – and desperately not wanting to find out what happened when she sneezed. Not with her being so perfect, and Tien wearing that soft smile he never wears in public. I couldn't – I just couldn't.

When I asked him to give a message to other me, he suggested I wait for the painkillers the nice doctor had given me to start working – I'm told Other Me gets a little jumpy sometimes right after we switch. I was happy to go along with this because, to be truthful, I didn't entirely want to switch right then anyway – our baby girl had been getting awfully heavy lately, but now that she was out I didn't ever want to let her go. But it wouldn't have been fair to make other me miss this moment entirely, and I was very tired, so once the pain started to fade, I tickled my nose and sneezed.

…I don't think I've ever been so scared to come to again as I was when I woke up after letting Other Me find out if our daughter changed like we did, not even the times I've woken up in the middle of a gun fight, or in prison. But Tien was still smiling at me when I looked at him.

"She thinks we should call her 'Surpa,'" he said before I could ask anything, and that threw me off a little.

"Surpa? It's a pretty name, but why? I thought we all agreed on 'Choswi' if it was a girl."

"Because," and Tien's smile shifted to include both of us, "'Surpa' is gender neutral."

I'm proud every time I see my daughter-son, and I'm grateful to my mother, because she taught me to be strong, and that's why I was able to have Surpa. Surpa, my little baby, who is one of the two most precious things I've ever received (the other is Tien's heart, which I treasure). Other Me says our mother taught her to be selfish, but I think she just learned how to be strong in a different way. And I like to think that, together with Tien and Chaotzu (who may have been more excited over Surpa's coming than any of the rest of us, the little dear), we're teaching Surpa to be strong, too.

OoOoOoO

Surpa - supper

Choswi – chop suey

 _This fic came about a little backwards – I actually created Surpa's character first for an as-yet incomplete and unpublished fic that I'm working on. At one point in the writing process, however, I realized I needed to go back and figure out a few things about Tien and Lunch's relationship in this world, and especially to get to know Lunch a bit, since she hadn't shown up in the story proper._

 _Lunch is a fun character but, like many DBZ characters, she didn't hold my attention long when I first encountered her. However, also like many DBZ characters, once I sat down to take a closer look and really spend some time with her, she became a lot more interesting and complex, especially because of her most defining characteristic – her split personality. And, on rereading the manga, it was interesting to note that, while Blonde Lunch out and out confesses her newly-formed crush to Tien, Black Lunch can be seen happily cuddling up to his arm at the end of the Piccolo arc, and to note other similarities between the two versions of Lunch. It's also shown that Black Lunch is quite aware of her Other Self, and I saw no reason Blonde Lunch wouldn't be as well._

 _One of my personal head canons that I slipped in here is that, regardless of Tien's actual opinion on the matter, Chaotzu thinks Tien and Lunch would be great together, totally ships it, and does his best to help Lunch in her plans._

 _Hopefully I'll get that other fic finished at some point, and you'll all get to meet Surpa properly, in all of his/her three-eyed, gender-bending glory. Hope you enjoyed!_


End file.
